Island Cafe

Island cafe at the Tangs shopping mall at Vivocity. You might find the association of Island cafe and Tangs weird, isn’t Tangs the fashion lifestyle retailer? What does Island cafe has to do with it?

Recently we have seen the rebranding of Tangs, from the old perception of Tangs is a boring place to shop, to the new image of a hip and lifestyle concept retailer store.

Naturally, Tangs wanted its customers to stay longer in its shopping mall, so it came out with Island Cafe for its customers to enjoy a little meal in between their shopping sprees. Tangs is not the first to come out with such ideas by combing food and shopping, think PS cafe and you will get the idea.

Island Cafe features a medley of local and regional favourite food, with choices like curry chicken, laksa, showing evidence of the “asian-ness”

The place at Vivocity is at ground floor within their shopping area. Exuding a rustic and tropical feel, there’s a cozy ambience factor with the small enclosed area.

Having heard about Island Cafe, naturally i was curious about how it’s like as i have never come here before. We decided to give the place a try while we are at Vivocity.

One look at the menu though, i immediately regretted coming in. Reason is simple, the menu selection is too little seriously. They got two choices of starters with the crab bisque as one. Two sandwiches, and two pizzas to choose from. There is four main course selection, laksa, curry chicken, green curry marinara, and black pepper aglio olio. And thats it!

We didn’t quite fancy the items available on the menu, but since we were there already, we just ordered their Guacamole & seafood pizza to share among the three of us.

Guacamole & seafood pizza ($12)

Guacamole, prawns, crabmeat, tomatoes, tomatoes paste and mozzarella make up the Gucamole & seafood Pizza. It comes in two price, $9 for the 5.5″ snack size, and $12 for the 8″ meat size.

The pizza is all right i guess, quite cheesy, with the pizza base thin. But i suppose at $12, you can easily find better pizzas around for a bigger size.

Total Bill is $14.04 for one pizza. I definitely will not go back to Island Cafe because the selections are simply too few and too little. Prices are acceptable considering its a cafe, but most of the choices seems more like hawker-type of food.

Besides the one located within Tangs at Vivocity, there’s also another Island Cafe at Tangs in Orchard.

We understand your disappointment in the small menu selection but unfortunately, we cannot serve a very extensive menu, including our signature dishes there because it cannot accommodate a proper kitchen as it’s meant to be more like a bistro within the store for our shoppers to catch a quick bite while shopping.

To really enjoy the full Island Cafe experience, we would like to invite you & a dining partner to visit us at TANGS Orchard, Level 4. Must-try dishes are our signature Black Pepper Tung Hoon with Soft Shell Crab, Laksa, and our weekly specials. Do let me know a convenient date for you, and if you would prefer lunch or dinner & I’ll make the necessary arrangements.

Hello Peihua: Thank you for your response, i am hearten that Tangs take account into the customers feedback, not just the positives one, but also the negative ones.

Ya i was quite disappointed by the small menu selections as i had heard quite good comments about island cafe. And after that account i had also passed by the Island Cafe at Tangs Orchard and realise that the one at Orchard level 4 seems to be a lot bigger in size and also menu-wise.

Appreciate your effort in finding out more about the customers feedback!

though I visit Vivo very often, I have yet to step foot into Island Cafe there. Yes, do try Island Cafe at Tangs Orchard. It’s really a nice place to dine at from a shopping break. I like their soft shell crab friend tang hoon, laksa, nasi goreng istimewa etc. Their local desserts are also very shiok as the gula melaka they use is very power keke